A continuing series of notes, thoughts and experiments that pertain to our own magickal work and may be of use to others in the same or similar path.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Energize the Machine

In the sleeping state, the machine is a dead thing, a forgotten robot that goes through the motions of its programmed habits, follows them over and over in intricate detail for years and years, progressively getting slower and older, until it starts to completely break down altogether on its way to its final breath. You cannot hope to achieve any Real result in this state. You may be very successful in life, you may have riches, health, fame or all of the above. But the most basic, simple tasks of Real Work will become insurmountable obstacles, any attempt at discipline will be smashed by distraction and laziness. There will always be an excuse, a reason to do it "later".A sleeping machine has no real Will. It may appear to have its own will at times, but that is only its programmed desire and ambition, interacting with the maelstrom of massive mechanical behavior and random accident. Anything that involves real Will, a Will that is borne of the Being, will encounter no fertile ground in a sleeping machine. So we must find a way to bring the machine to life. But how does one get life out a dead thing? How does one get blood out of a rock?If you walk around your house for a moment, in a calm relaxed way, you may be able to notice 2 things:One- Your intellectual brain is constantly pouring out thought after thought, in endless chains of associations. These thoughts, like little train cars made of words, carry emotions, fears, desires inside of them. They pull you into moods that are completely unrelated to the actual space around you. They drift like the broken bits of a ship in the ocean of your intellectual activity. You can look at them, but only after a lot of work will you be able to stop them, even for a few seconds. To struggle directly against them is a losing battle. Ultimately the one that struggles is another part of you, also with its own thoughts, fears, desires, associations, and so on. So even as you apparently win the struggle, you are already caught up in a new chain of associative thought. There is no end in sight.Two- Your physical body is moving around and you are not putting much thought into anything that it is doing. Once in a while your intellectual center may step in and say: "Now I should open the door", or "now I should go to the dining room." But mostly the body will just move. If you walk up a stairway, each foot will follow the other without any thought. The spine will move slightly forward and slightly backward to maintain balance. The shoulders will shift and the arm will extend to push open a door. All without any need of direct intervention by the intellectual center. It can be flowing along, thinking about the next day, about the date you have on Friday, about the upcoming promotions at your job, about the new movie that is about to come out… while the body moves around through the space simply following its own programmed course of actions.The body moves mechanically, asleep and vibrating at its lowest possible level, while the intellectual center allows all its energy to flow out continuously in an endless orgasm of associative thought. To bring life into the machine, we will attempt to connect these two separate systems and make them work together. If we can gather at least some of the energy that is being dispersed in random chains of thought, and direct it into the electrical network that flows through the body, we may start to see some signs of rebirth.Like a plant that has grown pale and withered from lack of water, the machine won’t wake up instantly. It may take weeks, months or even years of constant work for the energy to start flowing, to move through the multiple blockages and obstacles in its path. This is something that can’t be rushed. The more you desire results, the more your attention is distracted by the imaginary visions of what life will be like once you manage to awaken the machine, the longer this process will take. Settle yourself in for a long haul. Constantly asking "Are we there yet?" won’t make the car move any faster!But like the nearly dead plant that you left without water for so long, once it starts to absorb energy and it starts to become accustomed to your new level of attention on it, the machine will show definite signs of life. The colors that faded so long ago will come back, in ways more subtle and more mysterious than your desires could ever have projected.And like the plant, that will not be the end of your work. That’s where the real Work of Transformation begins.

Select a space where you will be free to move about without being disturbed.Set a timer for ten minutes.Begin to slowly move through the space.As you move, vocally illustrate the movements.For example, as you walk, say aloud:"I place my right foot forward, I place my left foot forward, I place my right foot forward, I place my left foot forward…"Describe every move that you make as you are making it. Lead with the body and occupy the mind with the narration. Describe with as much detail as possible. The more detail the better. Don’t just say "I open the door"… say "I raise my arm, bending my elbow slightly, I open up my hand, I extend my fingers…"Be careful not to think of a move to make and vocalize it before moving the body. Aim to make the description and the action be simultaneous or as close as possible.If you have the space to think about anything else other than moving and describing it, you either need to move more, perhaps increase the pace or you need to describe in much more profuse detail.